Hero Worship
by mmaayaaa
Summary: "It's all your fault!" he screams, and he's not sure if he's screaming it at himself or at the other boy. "She should be alive! She should be alive and here, but she's not, and it's entirely your fault. You promised." His voice cracks on the word 'promised'. It's broken, like everything else in his life is.


"Come with me," says the man in the suit and they have no choice but to follow him. Bianca doesn't look back, but he does. He wants to stay, surrounded by the toys and the games, but he knows he can't.

He gulps and follows.

* * *

He's ten when he first sees him across the gymnasium. His hands are wrapped tight around a girl's. She has blonde, curly hair that's coming down around her face, and she's laughing at something he said. His hands are being held by his sister's, tight. When they are lead away, Bianca grips on tighter. Her green hat is covering her face so her freckles are hidden underneath the shade, and he thinks that she would be much prettier without it masking her.

He sees the boy again a few minutes later. He's brandishing a sword that shines under the light, his black hair sweeping with the wind, and his green eyes vibrant with energy. He's alone, without the girl, and he's speaking, but the words are going over his head like the wind that's whipping them around.

_Manticore_.

His brain immediately goes to the cards shoved into his pocket, because, wow, these things actually exist, it's not all just a game anymore, it's real, and it's awesome. That is, until a force that none of them can see knocks them down and he hears the boy scream as arrows cloud the sky. He doesn't notice anything different, other than the manitcore being gone. But the boy with the black hair is staring at the edge of the cliff like his whole life depends on it.

His name is Percy, he learns later, when the wind stops whipping his ears red. He likes the way it feels on his tongue.

* * *

Bianca is quiet, soothing, and gentle when she carefully breaks the news to him. "Nico," she says, "I'm not going to camp with you."

"Why?" he replies, and he suddenly can't feel the fire that's burning in front of him. All he feels is coldness, like the snow is sticking onto his very soul.

"Because," she says. She doesn't have her hat on anymore and she's playing with her hair, which means she's nervous. Why would she be nervous? Bianca is supposed to be the strong one out of the two of them. She was the adult that he never had. She was all that he had left, and what was making her so nervous? "Because I think joining the Hunt would be the best thing. For both of us," she rushes all at once.

His throat is stuck on multiple words, but he can't voice them because…. because he feels like a part of him has been ripped out and thrown onto the ground. When he finds his words, they're so soft they feel breakable. "I thought we were supposed to stick together. You made me promise that we would stick together."

Bianca lets go of her hair and folds her hands into her lap. She's avoiding his gaze and her voice hiccups when she talks. "I know what we promised. But trust me, this is good for us. It's finally more than the two of us."

She kisses him on his head, ruffling his hair slightly as she gets up. She looks at him, a small, hopeless smile on her lips, and mist in her eyes. She's so beautiful, even when she's painfully sad. "This is good thing, Nico. I can feel it. _ Ti amo._" Then she turns away to go into one of the tents.

He can't see any reasoning why the change would be good. They're brother and sister; they're supposed to be together through thick and thin. They're not supposed to leave.

The boy, the hero that saved them, Percy, is watching as Bianca leaves her brother staring into the fire. Her brother's staring so hard that his dark eyes look like flames themselves.

* * *

He has decided that while he likes the camp, he does not like the cabin that he is currently staying in. They all say that once his godly parent claims him, he'll be able to move into the cabin and fully settle in. There's a gnawing feeling in the back of his head that insists that he will not be claimed, that he will live forever in the messenger god's shadow. He watches as his sister fits in with the immortal girls when they're at breakfast and he watches her laugh with them as they are getting ready for combat.

The armor that he has on his two sizes too big, but he feels amazing. It's just like his game, except bigger and brighter and real. It's almost like a dream come true, and when Percy walks by, the hero laughs slightly at the sight of him and all of a sudden he's blushing at the ground and he doesn't know why. He feels this urge to impress, and it's directed at the boy with sea green eyes.

* * *

He grabs Percy's hand and wraps his fingers around the other boy's wrist. "Promise me," he says, voice sounding too sad for a boy of his age. "Please, promise me that you'll keep her safe." His lips are quivering around his words.

"I," Percy starts, stumbling on his phrasing. It's clear that he wasn't expecting this. "I promise. She'll come back safe." The hero's voice is full of confidence, but he's too young to realize that it's all forced and fake.

He feeds on the promise, and he feels a sense of relief. The boy has already saved them once before. He's a hero, and heroes never fail, never go back on their promises.

He's a hero when he smiles down at Nico, and he's a hero when he leaves with the group, one hero too many.

* * *

Percy comes back a broken hero, with broken promises, and a figurine of Hades in his grip.

He cries and there are so many emotions rushing towards him that he's not sure who or what his tears are directed too. He just knows that he's crying, and all he has left of his sister is a small replica of his father.

* * *

When his tears have cried into pale lines on his face, he's raging with fear and loneliness and sadness. He runs and runs and runs. Runs from everything. Runs from his sister's soul, the boy that smells like sea salt, and most importantly, himself.

* * *

He's lost count at how many times he's tried to call upon her. He misses her with all his being, all his might, and he wants to be able to see her again, see her face with her soft eyes and tell her again that he loves her, and he's sorry for letting her down and being such a failure. He knows that he should have tried harder to keep her from going on the quest, from keep her from becoming a Hunter of Artemis in the first place. He knows, and he blames himself.

But he's not sure who he blames more, the hero that was, or himself.

They've both done such awful things.

* * *

In his rational part of his brain, he knows that Percy did everything that he could to keep her alive.

In the irrational part of his brain, he focuses on his passion on green-eyed hero, and everything that he's done for him. The passion is so strong, but he's not sure what kind of passion it is. All that the confusion does is make the feelings grow stronger.

He's tearing himself down, breaking into the dark crevices of his mind and refusing to come out.

* * *

"It's all your fault!" he screams, and he's not sure if he's screaming it at himself or at the other boy. "She should be alive! She should be alive and here, but she's not, and it's entirely your fault. You promised." His voice cracks on the word 'promised'. It's broken, like everything else in his life is.

* * *

"For me, Nico," Bianca's soul pleads. She's translucent. "It's our flaw, as children of Hades. You must let go, for me. _Per favore, per me."_

He wants to, but he's not sure what to let go of.

She's smiling sadly. Again.

"_Ci proverò" _His words are sour over the language that reminds him too much of a past that's too hazy to call home.

* * *

He's come to accept the fact that he will only be at peace among the dead.

He's come to accept the fact that he will be alone in this world.

He has not come to accept the fact that love and hate are two strong feelings that he cannot tell the difference between.

He has not come to accept that the hero is not all he's made out to be.

* * *

"Cake?" the hero's mother asks, and he cannot say no to that. Nobody can say no to cake, not after they've shadowed traveled and are starving.

He eats the slice happily, and acknowledges that he will never have this sort of mundane joy, but he takes it in anyways.

He's alone but sometimes he can pretend that he isn't.

Sometimes that he can pretend that he's a hero too.

* * *

"Your sister would have done much better," Hades admits, and he is sinking into the shadows. He wants to be approved of. He wants to be the hero. He only knows one hero, and his image is so fragmented at this point, he's not sure if it's just the mirror that's broken, of if it's just the way he sees things.

* * *

In other universe, he is the one that lives to see sixteen and sits upon the thrones of Olympus and smiles down. In another universe, he is the one that is the true hero, the one that makes all the right choices. In another universe, everything that he feels is not twisted into doubts and worries. In another universe, he can be the hero.

In this universe, he blames himself for everything that has ever gone wrong because he knows he cannot do any good. Only heroes can do that.

He has so many flaws. With him, he thinks, the good does not outweigh the bad.

* * *

Somewhere along the line, Percy becomes the hero, to his hero.

He's not sure when this lined blurred, and as hard as he can try, he cannot reverse it.

* * *

He's so desperate, so desperate for any form of love that he takes his hero down to his realm and hands him over to his father. It's satisfying, at first, but then he looks at the face of his hero, and he crumbles into guilt. He wanted to do the right thing, but all he's got to show for it is a coil of blackness in his gut that's growing by the minute.

When he learns of his past, of all his time stuck in a never ending time loops, his head is spinning. He apologizes again and again for his actions, but his hero is loathing and then he is loathing himself.

He's not a hero.

* * *

Achilles is known as a hero to the Greeks. But really, he has lost everything that he has ever had and he dies in the end.

When he watches his hero step into the River Styx, he holds his breath. There is such a silence that glooms over them, that he feels like he's asphyxiating, and his hero is the one that's drowning in the river.

When his hero finally comes up, panting for air that he's breathing in raspy gasps, there's an eerie sense of relief that comes with knowing that his hero cannot be damaged. His hero is the true warrior, the true hero.

His shoulders slump down as the tension is released. His half-formed plan has worked.

* * *

His sword is black death as it swipes through everything that it comes in contact with. He can feel the life forces draining as he strikes, and he knows he looks like a madman with his dark attire, hungry for a fight. He's always know that he's powerful, maybe more powerful than the others, but this is the first time he truly feels powerful.

His father is by his side, and he feels a sense of pride running through him as he runs through monster after monster.

After the battle is over, and his hero is talking to the gods as if he is one of them, he feels a sense of contentment wash over him. His hero is getting the recognition he deserves.

And his hero is shining brightly as he turns down their deal and instead negotiates with the gods, making them promise to recognize their kids. He talks about the cabins that will be put in to make room for the coming influx of campers.

His hero is shining brightly as he turns to the girl with piercing gray eyes and curly blonde hair loose around her shoulders. He shines brightly when he kisses her softly.

He shines brightly because he is the hero. He is the savior of them all. He's happy.

* * *

He lounges as the skeleton warriors move around, building the cabin that he is soon going to be calling his home. The kids around him look at him like he's something special, something to be honored.

He doesn't get a chance to get used to the feeling, because then the kids are turning their heads whenever he looks their way, scared and frightened of the ghost king who brings death where he walks. When he disappears into the shadows, he wonders if any of them will miss him.

They won't remember him because he's not the hero.

The true hero is the one he's come to love. Even if it's a twisted form of worship that he feels with his entire heart, it's still a form of love and he loves his hero. But he's just Nico di Angelo, the son of Hades that doesn't belong anywhere but the shadows.

* * *

The shadows are not very talkative, but at least he cannot run from something he already is.


End file.
